Karen Cummings sends false report on CCJ Judgment to OAS

Jul 23, 2020 News

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In a letter to the Chair of the Organization of American States (OAS) Permanent Council, Luis Cordero, Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karen Cummings sought to falsely represent the judgment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on the recount case.

In the letter, dated July 19, 2020 – sent ahead of the special meeting of the Council, held on Tuesday, July 20 – Cummings stated that the “The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was then approached and, in its ruling, invalidated the Recount Process, on the grounds that the Recount Order No. 60 of 2020 ought not to contradict the constitution of Guyana.”
The Caribbean Court stated in paragraph 47 of its full judgment in Irfaan Ali vs. Eslyn David et al, “Unless and until an election court decides otherwise, the votes already counted by the recount process as valid votes are incapable of being declared invalid by any person or authority other than the High Court through an election petition.”
The Court not only held that the recount process could not be invalidated unless in an election petition after a final declaration is made; it held also that only the High Court has the jurisdiction to take up that mantle.
In presenting this false report to Ambassador Cordero, Cummings was arguing for the position of the coalition, which favoured not the transparent recount that showed it lost the elections, but the Returning Officers’ district declarations, which most notably included the fraudulent March 13 Region Four declaration that would give the coalition a false national lead.

This became evident in the continuation of the Minister’s letter, where she stated, “It [the CCJ] ruled, also, that the Chairman of the Election Commission must therefore act in accordance with the Constitution of Guyana and declare the elections results based on the Report presented by the Chief Election Officer. The Report presented by the Chief Election Officer on 11th July 2020 indicated that APNU+AFC received 236,777 votes and the PPPC, received 229,330 votes.”
Those results were presented in a report by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, largely based on the ten declarations made by the Returning Officers. In presenting this report to the Commission, Lowenfield disregarded multiple instructions handed to him in letters by the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired Justice Claudette Singh. Rather than giving Lowenfield the latitude to present any report he wished to, Guyana’s apex Court condemned his move to act unilaterally.
That Lowenfield is subject to the direction and control of the Commission was iterated by Justice Singh’s lawyer, Kim Kyte-Thomas in her argument to the High Court in the case of Misenga Jones vs. GECOM et al. Kyte-Thomas argued that “Lowenfield cannot go off on a frolic of his own and put himself above GECOM, the laws of Guyana and even the Constitution.”
This argument was upheld by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire in her Monday ruling, in which she stated, “It is the Chairperson and GECOM that have the constitutional mandate” and that “the CEO cannot act on his own.”
Lowenfield’s argument in that case, had also sought to discredit the recount, and that was summarily dismissed by the Chief Justice as “hopelessly flawed”. Notably, the Chief Justice’s judgment was premised on respect for the rulings of the CCJ and the Court of Appeal on cases pertaining to the recount, as it depended on the precedents set and decisions made by those Courts.

False reinforces false
The content of the letter from the Foreign Minister to the Council Chair is consistent with another false statement made by the Attorney General, Basil Williams on Tuesday, the day of the special meeting, when he also falsely claimed that the CCJ nullified the recount.
Following the address by the two Ministers, PPP/C executive Anil Nandlall condemned Williams’ false report.
“He [Williams] continues to spin a narrative that defies reality,” Nandlall said. “The narrative that he’s reciting is a narrative that is inconsistent with everything that every other person and every other organization have observed and spoke about and wrote about in relation to the Guyana elections. He just misrepresented completely, the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice, its purport and effect.”
Nandlall further explained that the false narrative peddled by the coalition is what “the people of Guyana and the entire region have had to be confronted with and deal with on a daily basis – misrepresentations, lies and fabrications.”
He said that they so do, because “their repeated attempts to rig the elections are being uncovered and discovered and made public…”
The special meeting of the Permanent Council was adjourned and is set to continue at an undetermined date.
Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda to the OAS, Sir Ronald Sanders had told Kaieteur News that the OAS, a union of 35 states, could authorise all of its member states to sanction Guyana as they see fit, if what is currently happening in the country is determined to have constituted a violation of the democratic principles of the region. Such action would have repercussions on CARICOM as well, since all CARICOM states are member states of the OAS, and its resolutions would be binding on them.

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